Jimmy, Thanks for reaching out. The BVARC reflector is a great resource for asking questions. You have the call sign correct (WX5KR), I'm glad to hear you are interested in getting involved and thank you so much for joining BVARC! Congratulations on your General License as well.
So as far as getting on the air, if you haven't already done so, I highly recommend adding the 146.940MHz repeater (offset is -600 kHz and CTCSS tone is 167.9 Hz) to your radio. If you're having trouble with that, please give me a call at my number below. I can meet with you sometime this week to get you squared away on operating your radios. Also (if you have time) we will be having an event at Brazos Bend State Park on Sunday 10/23/22 which you are absolutely welcome to attend, and I or other folks in the group can give you some hands-on assistance with your rado there as well. A good resource to find repeaters to program in your radio would be RepeaterBook.com. I'm sure you've taken a look at YouTube as well, but it's always a good spot to check for detailed information. We have a few other organizations you may want to look into here in the area, and that is ARES District 14 <https://stxd14ares.org/> and District 1 (depending on your location). There are many public service opportunities that are publicized by that group and BVARC (e.g. Bike rides, the Wings Over Houston Airshow, the Houston Marathon etc.) There are many nets on the 146.940MHz repeater, including the BVARC Stir-Crazy net weekdays at noon till we finish (usually around 1pm), we have the Monday Night net at 8pm, the local traffic net on Mondays at 6:30pm, Tuesdays at 7pm we have the QuestionAir net, and on some Wednesdays we have the ARES D14 SW Unit net at 8pm. Like I said, give me a call and I can make time to meet with you about your radio and getting on the air. I wish you the best of luck in your ham radio endeavors and as we say, 73! Thanks, Kori Rahman, WX5KR *Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club* Cell: (770) 298 8516 kori...@gmail.com On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 10:46 AM Jimmy Newland via BVARC <bvarc@bvarc.org> wrote: > Hello all, > Back in 2018, I took Dr. Pat Reiff's class on the physics of HAM radio at > Rice University as teacher professional development. I passed the > technician exam back then. (I teach physics and astronomy at a school in > Houston ISD.) Now I am taking the class again for credit as a graduate > student at the University of Houston and last night I passed the general > exam. I have a DMR and a handy talkie, both by TYT. But I am still > struggling to learn how to actually make contacts and how to use my radios. > > Dr. Pat connected to a BVARC net back in August and I made a contact with > the operator. (If I entered the details into my QRZ logbook correctly, I > made contact with WX5KR.) That night I joined BVARC. I also recently joined > the UH ARC as well. But I still don't know what I am doing really. I am > looking for advice on how to learn to use my 2 radios. As a teacher and a > graduate student, I don't have a lot of time to attend meetings but I want > to get involved in the community at large. > > The DMR handset is a TYT model MD-UV390 with a code plug from 2018. The > handy talkie is TYT model TH-UV88. > > I am a technically competent person with a lot of knowledge about the > physics of radio waves and lots of "computery" skills but I can't even > figure out how to change frequencies on the TYT handy talkie. I can muddle > through on the DMR handset but again, using the interface on the unit makes > me feel clumsy and frustrated. > > I am looking for some good resources on learning HAM stuff so I can become > a competent user of my equipment and can make contacts. I'd like to get a > home or car setup eventually but I need to master these little radios and > make some contacts first. > > Any advice is appreciated. > Thanks, > Jimmy > N5JFX > ________________________________________________ > Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club > > BVARC mailing list > BVARC@bvarc.org > http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org > Publicly available archives are available here: > https://www.mail-archive.com/bvarc@bvarc.org/ >
________________________________________________ Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club BVARC mailing list BVARC@bvarc.org http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org Publicly available archives are available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/bvarc@bvarc.org/
